


A Life to Be Proud Of

by EveryDayBella



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Bruising, Cancer, Fluff, Hockey, Hurt/Comfort, Kidfic, Light Angst, M/M, Mostly Fluff, Recovery, Sickness, no ones surprised by that tag right
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-10
Updated: 2016-08-10
Packaged: 2018-08-07 22:34:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7732312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EveryDayBella/pseuds/EveryDayBella
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two scenes of boys in love and the game that keeps bringing them together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Life to Be Proud Of

**Author's Note:**

> HAPPY BIRTHDAY MYHEROIN!!! She wanted hockey fic, but this was all I was able to come with. Hopefully you still like this and one day I'll write a real hockey fic. Have a great birthday and thank you for being your awesome self!
> 
> Also love to Angelycdevil for reading and correcting all my junk. I love you babe!

**A Life to Be Proud Of**

 

“I told you not to do it.” Bucky didn’t even feel sorry for saying it as he fell into the train seat. “I told you it was stupid and dumb and not to do it. But what did you do?”

Steve glared at him, though the whole effort was ruined by the bruising around his right eye and the fact that he was still holding his nose. A “fuck you, Bucky” comes out nasally and more pained than annoyed.

Bucky dropped their bags at their feet and sat down next to him just as the train started up. “Tilt your head back again.” Steve rolled his pretty blue eyes, but followed Bucky’s instructions anyway. “I should have brought the ice pack with us.”

“Wouldn’t have done any good. Ouch,” he said as Bucky inspected the deep purple bruise. 

“Oh, look at that. He knows what pain is,” Bucky muttered. “I should take you the hospital.”

Bucky regretted it when Steve turned white and his eyes filled with fear. He never wanted to be the reason that Steve looked like that. After all the time Steve had spent in the hospital in the last couple of years, it wasn’t like Bucky didn’t get it. 

“Hey, hey.” Bucky felt all the annoyance drain out of him as he cupped Steve’s cheeks in his hands, forcing his boyfriend to look at him. “It's not like that okay. It's not because I think you're gonna wither away on me. I just don’t like it when you’re hurting and I wanna make sure you’re okay.”

Steve nods, eyes suspiciously glassy. Bucky knows he won’t let himself cry on the subway, but that doesn’t stop him from feeling it. Bucky shifts enough to get his arm across Steve’s narrow shoulders. Steve seattle's against him as much as he can with his head back until his nose stops bleeding again. 

Bucky shook his head, sneaking a kiss into Steve’s blond hair. Bucky has known Steve since pre-k and in all that time, he has never been one to back away from a fight. Maybe he had hopped that things would be different now that Steve knew the limits of his mortality. 

Maybe it was better that he didn’t. Bucky doesn’t think he could handle it if Steve had let the cancer change him that much. 

Even when they were kids, Steve had been sickly. It was one of those things that he got used to. He never let it keep down. He was standing up for those who couldn’t. That was why Bucky had fallen for his best friend so completely. That goodness that poured out of him made everything else better in the process. Bucky had been blown away when Steve felt the same way. 

To his shock, no one was even surprised when they started dating. 

When they were juniors in college, things went from bad to worse. Steve was diagnosed with leukemia and that had been their life for last year and a half. They had both dropped out of school, Bucky to work to help pay medical bills and Steve because two rounds of chemotherapy and a round of radiation really took it out of him. 

Now Steve was in remission and they were trying to get their life back. Steve was trying to finish his art degree. Bucky was looking into online classes. They were trying to move forward and away from the pain and fear they had both suffered through. Steve was getting his strength back and that was all Bucky cared about.

Of course, Steve feeling better also meant that he felt he had to prove it. Bucky told him that nine months into recovery was too soon for a strenuous sport like hockey, but Steve wouldn’t listen to him. Steve had loved hockey since they were kids, watched every Islanders game, and his favorite birthday had been when he was thirteen and his mother had scraped enough money to take him and Bucky to the season opener. He’d even played pee wee for a couple years. So when he had gotten the chance to play on an amater team, he wouldn’t listen to Bucky’s frankly good reasons to not.

Which lead to Steve taking a bad hit where he lost his helmet and took an elbow to the face. Steve’s fine skin always bruised up good, but after watching him go through chemo, Bucky can’t deny the panic that settles into him. He knows it's not that bad. Steve’s nose might be broken, but it wouldn’t be the first time. The right side of his face is black and blue, but Steve has been through worse. 

Bucky took a deep breath, forcing himself to relax. He knew he was protective. He knew that he’d gotten much worse after the treatment, but he also needed to chill. Steve was fine and doing stupid things was just something he did. If he were being honest, that tenacity was one of the things he loved about Steve. He wouldn’t want to take that away from him.

“Hey, I got you something.” Bucky says when Steve tips himself back upright. Bucky ignores the blue glare as he bends down rummage through his backpack. He comes back and hands the slim package to Steve. His boyfriend's eyes light up and then he scowls. 

“Bucky, what’s this for? I know what this costs. You shouldn’t have.”

Bucky shrugged, biting back a remark about how he can spend his money how he wants. Steve’s favorite chocolate bar was the dark chocolate Lindt bar that was 81% cocoa. It was dark, bitter, strong, and expensive so they didn’t get it very often. He can see it in Steve’s face, the struggle between excitement and pragmatism. 

Bucky sighs, snatching the package from his fingers and ripping into it. “I’m not taking it back, duffus.”

“Jerk.” Steve can’t keep most of the smile at bay at excepts a piece. “What’s this for?”

Bucky shrugs, purposefully looking anywhere but at Steve. “I just wanted you to know how proud I am of you. I know I said this is stupid and it is, I stand by that, but I’m still proud of you though. It not just anybody who would bounce back like you have. And even if you did get your face beaten up, I’m always be proud of you.”

Steve was deceptively close to crying again. He tucked his head into Bucky’s shoulder in an effort to hide it. “You’re such a stupid sap.”

In their own private language, it was as good as an I love you. They know this will hardly be the end of the line. They know that they have still more uphill days ahead, but they also have each other and a chocolate bar to share. 

~.o0o.~

“WOOOO!” Winfred Barnes’ voice carried around the arena over the sound of all the other parents. “Go Sarah!”

“Ma.” Bucky groaned, having the good grace to be embarrassed for his daughter. She was down on the ice, dressed in green and white with a big number 4 and the name  _ Barnes-Rogers  _ on it. This was her third pee wee game, but the first her grandmothers were in attendance for. It was giving Bucky flashbacks to his own games. 

“Oh, hush. I’m just having fun.” Winfred smiled with that spark in her eye that meant trouble. She turned to the other Sarah, Steve’s mom who they had named their daughter after, and said, “Do you remember when it was them out there? They were so cute in their little uniforms.”

“I still have that picture somewhere where they fell asleep in the back seat with their jerseys still on.”

“Mom.” Steve pulled himself out of his tense tracking of the game for a moment with a warning tone.

“It's too easy.” Sarah said to Winfred and they both giggled. Bucky and Steve shared a long suffering look and went back to paying attention to their daughter. 

Bucky was still blown away that they had a daughter. It seemed like just yesterday he had held her as a baby and now, she was six. She was already almost half as tall as Steve was and just as tenacious. Hockey was good for her. It let her run off some energy.

“Bucky.” Steve suddenly grabbed his arm with breaking his gaze away from the ice. “Here it comes.”

Really, it was nothing spectacular, it's a pee wee game after all, but that didn’t stop the sea of pride that he felt when his daughter went all the way from the blue line to the net and sunk a puck in past the goalie to scored her first goal. This time he didn’t hush his mother because he and Steve were both up and screaming, cheering, and making a general nuisance of themselves. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Steve, clearly overjoyed. 

Bucky still couldn’t believe that they got here. That they made it to see Steve healthy, Bucky in a job that pays well enough to take care of them. That they raised a child. It was a good, overwhelming feeling. 

After the game, when they came to collect her, Sarah ran directly for Steve, something heavy and dark held tight in the palm of her hand. “Look, Dad! They let me keep it!. Can we put it with the rest of your stuff?”

Steve took the puck from her like it was the first one he'd ever seen despite having a few game pucks in his Islanders Collectable Collection. “We’ll put it right in the middle,” he promised. “Right where everyone can see it.”

She beamed and hugged him tightly, before turning toward Bucky. “Did you see?”

“Every moment. We’re proud of you. sweetheart.” 

Sarah blushed but let her father hug her anyway. She ended up between them as Steve steered them toward the arena entrance. “Come on. We’re taking Grandma and Gramie to dinner to celebrate.”

“Can I get a milkshake?”

“Sure.” Bucky replied, sharing an amused glance with Steve. If their biggest worry is controlling her sugar intake, then it was a good life.

And it was. It was a life to be proud of.


End file.
